I was always going to write a column about Lil Wayne this week. You see, he's expected to be released from prison on Thursday after serving eight months of his one−year sentence. He went upstate back in February after pleading guilty to weapons charges stemming from a 2007 arrest following a New York City performance.
So a column about Lil Wayne would be timely. People would pick up the Daily and see something about Lil Wayne and they'd think: "Oh! Lil Wayne; I wonder where he's been?" And then they'd read it and find out, and there would be celebrating on Thursday when Weezy gets out of prison.
Originally the column was going to be about how Weezy is getting out of prison and how that's a good and exciting thing for hip−hop. I wrote that column, or at least most of it.
But then I went with a friend to a Guster concert in Providence, R.I., Saturday night, and I sort of realized how … different — and important — Lil Wayne is. (Side note: After the show, I met the band, and lead singer Ryan Miller (LA '95) showed a clear preference for the Daily: "Go Tufts Daily! F−−− The Observer!" he shouted, adding, "Go Jumbos!")
I know it isn't really fair to compare Lil Wayne to Guster. There really is no point of comparison. Guster makes pleasant rock music in the vein of other pleasant rock music that ostensibly everyone can enjoy — at the show I was standing next to a group of teenage girls who were singing along to every song, behind an old man and his wife and in front of a family with little kids — whereas Lil Wayne makes some of the most inspired hip−hop music out there. Guster is a really tight, good band; Lil Wayne is an important artist.
No offense to Guster, but Lil Wayne is a much more exciting musical act. Guster, even at its most creative, is never as out there as Lil Wayne. Some blame Weezy's beloved drugs, but a normal mind, even warped by years of hard drug use, couldn't produce some of the things that Wayne has said.
As I write this, I'm listening to a playlist culled from two musical acts: Lil Wayne (obviously) and Guster (again, obviously). There's nothing really surprising about Guster's lyrics, but even now, I'm still hearing new lines in Lil Wayne songs that I've heard dozens of times before.
Take "Back on My Grizzy" from "Da Drought 3," a mixtape I've been listening to since its release in 2007. Until just now, I had never heard the line, "I'm a crazy−ass star like a f−−−−−− asterisk."
It's a great line. For other rappers — if they could pull it off — it would be a punch line. It would be a featured line and you would know it when you heard the song. For Lil Wayne, this line is a throwaway line, followed by three other ridiculous lines: "You n−−−−− can't see me, I'm on my Casper s−−−/Runnin' so much game, I f−−− around and lap a b−−−−/The club like a grocery, I just bag a b−−−−."
Case in point: The grocery metaphor in the last line is picked up by Gudda Gudda, who drops it at the very end of his verse from "Bedrock" (2009) — the insane Young Money Entertainment quasi−posse cut — featuring it as the punch line to his verse: "She don't even wonder 'cause she know she bad/And I got her, n−−−−, grocery bag."
Two years before Gudda drops it, Wayne throws it away.
So yeah, it's pretty important that Weezy might be released on Thursday. After eight months of sobriety (maybe), it's going to be really interesting to see what Lil Wayne gets up to. If he does indeed leave prison a free man on Thursday, Nov. 4, 2010, I can guarantee that by this time next week, we'll have some amazing new Lil Wayne songs to pull apart for the next three years.
And I cannot wait.
